The present invention relates to a magnetic tape cartridge having an identification indicator for identifying type information peculiar to the cartridge including tape characteristics and a tape standard of the magnetic tape on the tape drive side.
It is publicly known, as shown in Patent Documents of JP 2002-373479 A (FIG. 1, FIG. 2) and JP 2002-367336 A (FIG. 1, FIG. 2) for example, that in the field of magnetic tape cartridges, an identification indicator which can be read by an optical reader mounted on the tape drive side is provided on the outer surface of the main case. In the Patent Documents, a two-dimensional code as an identification display is formed on the outer surface of the main case.
The two-dimensional codes can carry data with a data size several dozen to several hundred times larger than the data size of bar codes, and therefore according to the tape cartridges in the Patent Documents, ample information can be transmitted to the tape drive side. The problem of this system is inevitable increase in manufacturing costs of the tape drive due to an expensive optical reader as the two-dimensional codes need to be read by the optical reader having a CCD area image senor incorporated in the tape drive. There is further a disadvantage that a read portion of this kind of CCD area image sensor is relatively large, which requires considerable design change on the tape drive side, leading to increase in manufacturing costs of the tape drive.